


To come or go by Carterhaugh

by swordandpen



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Fairies, Multi, also other characters who will be tagged later if they show up a lot, and associated fuckery, sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-05-17 04:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordandpen/pseuds/swordandpen
Summary: Ronan is taken away by something old but new to his friends - the fair folk who live in the mountains. It's up to the people who care about him, especially Adam, to bring him home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Work and chapter titles, as well as a lot of inspiration, have been taken from the Ballad of Tam Lin.
> 
> content warnings for abuse mention, neck trauma mention, and kidnapping

Adam woke to the soft sunlight at Ronan’s window, with Ronan curled up beside him. Everything was quiet, except for Ronan’s steady breathing and Adam’s own harsh, ragged breaths. He’d woken from a nightmare. But this wasn’t like the kind he normally sometimes got, mixes of the double-wide and fists with unrelated content, or the feeling of his hands round Ronan’s throat with no friends there to stop him in the dream. 

This one felt real. 

He gently pushed at Ronan’s shoulder. He wouldn’t wake Ronan over a normal nightmare - even though Ronan had told him to do just that - but this was different. Ronan slept on uninterrupted. 

“Ronan,” Adam said, pushing at him again, checking Ronan’s hands for a dream object that might have kept him still even after waking. There was nothing there. “Hey, Ronan, wake up.” Nothing.

“Ronan!” Adam said in what had become a shout. The dreamer slept on.


	2. When from my horse I fell

Ronan had been walking through Cabeswater, the new shape of it he had brought into the waking world and into the dream world where he was then. The light was gold and shimmering then, the leaves green and swaying. He sang an old song he remembered from childhood, something steady and loving and mournful. As he walked further the light shifted, turning silvery. The shadows grew, and the trees’ whispers louder and fiercer. A chill crawled up his spine. He slowed and looked around, for what he was unsure. Night horrors, the demon, Adam wearing the mask, someone else he loved being hurt.

He saw none of those things. Instead, in the gaps between the trees, he saw flickering shapes, gray and white and shadow, growing more visible but never making complete sense as forms. A cold breeze brought the scents of flowers and fruit. Music began to rise around him, at first his own song then becoming something else familiar but strange. It was beautiful. Yet no matter how loud it became, it sounded as if it came from far away. 

Maybe it was because the music so distracted him that Ronan heard no footsteps before he felt a cool touch on his shoulder. It did not frighten him but it caused his stomach to lurch all the same, with its familiarity. Some hopeful part of him believed it would be Noah facing him when he turned around. 

Instead it was, of course, a stranger. 

He found himself unable or unwilling to move or speak or break away from the figure’s gaze. It was beautiful. He knew he should have run.


	3. Chapter 3

Adam almost called 911 with Ronan’s phone before stopping to think. Ronan showed no signs of physical distress other than unconsciousness, his breathing and pulse steady ?and calm?. That, along with the dream, made him think this might be something a hospital couldn’t help with. He promised himself that he’d consider it again after calling Fox Way, if the women there had no other advice. His hands shook as he dialed their number. 

Calla picked up on barely the second ring. That was surprising - usually only Orla was that quick to answer. (Adam was grateful that hadn’t happened this time - he wasn’t sure he could be patient now if Orla sidetracked a conversation like usual.) 

“What,” she greeted.

“Hey this is Adam, I’m sorry but something’s wrong with Ronan and I don’t know what to do,” Adam rushed out, “He won’t wake up - I can’t figure out what this is, do you or Maura know? Please -”

“Is he breathing?” Calla cut him off. 

“Y- yeah, he -” Adam had a sudden moment of terror and had to check again that Ronan still was. He ran over and checked Ronan’s breath and pulse, finding them both as they had been. It was small relief. “He is. But something’s wrong.”

“I didn’t doubt that,” Calla said grouchily. “Maura and I both had a feeling something bad was going on starting early this morning, no way would I have answered that snake’s number myself otherwise.” 

Adam took a deep breath, hurt joining fear, but Calla spoke again before he could.

“Kid. We didn’t know something was up with him specifically, just that something was moving along the ley line that isn’t normally here. Something dangerous.”

“Do you know what it is? What do I do? Is he going to wake up?”

“No, and don’t move him for now, and I don’t know. Are you at his family’s place?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Have you him or Blue or the pretty one or the one with the tall hair done anything with the ley line recently? I’m including the ones of you who are away, if anyone would still find a way to mess with things it would be one of you.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You should call Blue anyway, that girl will be furious later if you don’t. Wait there, I’ll get Maura to drive the two of us over.” She hung up. He called Blue, distant by now and sounding almost calm next to her worry. She seemed as concerned for him as for Ronan, but he wasn’t sure he was actually available to be comforted right now. She hung up too after a muffled aside to whoever she was with, promising to come without him ever asking. Then she hung up too, and Adam stared at the phone as he sank down to the floor. He was close enough to the bed to lean against it, and to reach and hold Ronan’s hand while staring at the unchanging phone screen.


	4. Chapter 4

After how long he didn’t know, Adam snapped out of it enough to check Ronan’s breathing again then go looking for Opal. He found her curled up in a nest behind the couch. At first he thought she was asleep, but when he softly called her name she twisted and looked up at him. She looked tired, though, eyes heavy-lidded and shadowed, movement sluggish. She was usually so full of energy it was overwhelming. She let him lift her into his arms, and curled up, barely reacting otherwise, Adam felt a chill as he wished for once for her to be loud, wreaking havoc and chewing on his t-shirt like she ought to be. He tried to hide his fear from her, and carried her up to Ronan’s room to curl up next to him instead.

“Kerah” was all she said before clinging to Ronan’s arm and curling up again. Adam was grateful she didn’t close her eyes, but he tucked the blanket over her to keep her warm and went to the door to wait for Maura and Calla.


	5. Chapter 5

While Adam hadn’t called anyone when black ooze started running out of Ronan’s ears and nose the last time, there was a vital difference. Then, Ronan had been conscious and present to do something about it. Despite Adam’s pride, he knew now that he couldn’t handle everything alone. And if he was being honest, right now alone was the last thing he wanted to be. 

What he probably needed and definitely wanted, even more than the help of the only real adults he’d ever managed to trust, was his friends. Blue was confused as hell by a call coming from Ronan’s number, but that also meant she picked up right away because it had to be something important. Well, probably. He did use his phone every once in a while now that geography was between him and the others, though usually just to send shitty photos of Chainsaw. 

 

Blue, Gansey, and Henry were on the other side of the country. Under other circumstances Adam might have been annoyed at how lightly they decided to come back to help, cancelling non-refundable reservations and buying last-minute plane tickets. They only stopped to get the Pig from Gansey’s family’s house. This didn’t feel like the kind of thing to be solved within a day with just a scrying bowl and some cards. 

Not that those things would likely be unneeded, either.


	6. For young Tam Lin is there

Calla tapped Ronan’s forehead and frowned, her brows furrowed. Maura looked at her questioningly. Calla glanced at Adam, who was holding Ronan’s hand again.

The two of them had shown up and walked in the door without knocking. Jimi had stayed at Fox Way with Orla - there were enough in-person customers that day that they didn’t quite trust Orla with, and the electric bill was due soon.

Finally Calla spoke, which would have been to Adam’s relief except for what she said. 

“Your boyfriend’s not in there right now. He’s lost somewhere. I think something - or someone - took him. It’s good you didn’t move him, because he’ll need to find his way back.”

Adam wasn’t sure where to start with his questions, unsure which were useful and which were just fear. 

“Could you tell anything about what took him or where he went?” Maura asked. 

“I just saw the woods and some moving shadows. There was also a smell though - It’s weirdly familiar, like - blackberry. And something else flowery - what’s that poison one?”

“Poison?” asked Adam sharply.

“Hush, Coca-cola, I’m not saying that-”

Maura cut in. “Which poison flower? There are lots, you know.”

Calla huffed. “The clustery one you find in haunted places in the woods, you know what I mean. Fox-”

“Foxglove,” Maura finished. “Oh dear.” 

Calla leveled her gaze on Adam. “It’s been a while since I saw this kind of shit. But, looks like your boy might have been taken by the fairies.”

***

That took enough explaining to embarrass Adam with his confusion. He didn’t grow up hearing about the kind of fairies they were talking about. The word “fairies” conjured up ideas of tiny winged people cavorting in gardens, or bestowing gifts on princesses, not anything particularly dangerous. Or particularly real. It was a different kind of magic. Though, as the women explained, it started to seem not so different after all.

Ronan, Adam thought longingly, probably knew a lot more about the ‘fair folk’ as he was told to refer to them in their presence. 

The kind of creatures that may have taken Ronan sounded neither entirely alive or entirely dead. But they weren’t ghosts like Noah had been. They were something harder to name than just decaying regular human souls.

“So are they evil?” He asked. Maura shrugged. “Well, these ones don’t sound too trustworthy, since they’re the type to take people. But they’re not like the demon - they’re not inherently destructive, they just… can be, if they feel like it.”

“Like human people,” Calla added.

“According to the stories I’ve heard, anyway. I’m not an expert thank god,” Maura added. 

“We did see them once, though,” Calla said, her eyebrows raised as she looked at Maura. Maura narrowed her eyes. “You tried to follow the pretty glowing lights and music down a path in the woods at midnight, if I recall.”

“It could have been just people, or ghosts! Anyway, I’d been scrying.” 

“Yes, just people having an outdoor party in the middle of nowhere in damp 45 degree weather, only loud enough for you to hear and not me. And the scrying factor makes me right, not you.” 

Maura glared. “There are more relevant matters to discuss,” she said.

Calla rolled her eyes but let it lie. 

Adam nodded once, slowly. He decided not to ask what they’d been doing in the woods in such inhospitable conditions. He certainly had no room to judge anyway, at this point. 

The mention of scrying scratched at his mind. It reminded him of earlier searching, of going to Cabeswater without walking a step, of entering a kind of dream-state.

He knew what to ask, now. “How do I get him back?”


	7. Chapter 7

The friends sat in a circle on the floor of Ronan’s room. Adam wouldn’t have wanted to let Ronan’s sleeping form out of his sight, and Blue and Gansey suggested the same closeness - he didn’t have to ask for it. The scrying bowl was in front of Adam. Blue put her hand in Adam’s at least technically for amplification. So did Gansey though, who had his other hand in Blue’s. Maura and Henry sat nearby, Maura watching sharp-eyed. Henry had asked if he should leave, seeming wary of intruding, but half-heartedly. Adam (and even Ronan) had talked to him more in the past few years through the skype calls he shared with Blue and Gansey, and Adam had a growing respect for him and what he would if asked have to admit was becoming a friendship, even if it was a strange one. Adam knew Ronan thought he was hilarious, even if he’d never admit it to Henry’s face. Anyone who was good for Gansey had some acceptance from him - from both of them. Henry sat just behind and between his two companions, so they could hold hands with each other even as he leaned into them.

The reading at first just confirmed what they already knew. And as Maura often said fortunes were, it was not specific. There was the seven of cups; maybe related to dreaming. Three of pentacles - collaboration? Then the hanged man, sacrifice, which made everyone tense. Adam could feel the others not looking at him. It seemed more to do with Cabeswater though, he thought.

And then Death. No one spoke, after that one.

Their collective past, and fears of another loss, hung heavy in the air. Adam took a breath and tried to think clearly, though - maybe this time, death would not be as literal as before. It often wasn’t, for people with less dangerous lives than they’d all had. It also connected to change, and transformation, and Adam held to that. Blue mumbled something about that too, though she didn’t sound like she believed it. As Adam gathered up the cards, and then tried to be subtle about checking Ronan’s breathing, Gansey spoke, in a quiet version of his kingly voice. 

“I think we should go to the ley line. Maybe to where Cabeswater used to be.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short one here - I figure better that than nothing. I'm easing back into writing fic.

Once they left the Camaro, talk even of strategy fell away. Their worry was like fog around them. It made the distance between each feel further.

As they walked, the slightest sound brought disproportionate fear and hope together. Each time, though, it was just a bird, or a squirrel, or the wind. No sign of their friend. Or of his captors.

The air grew thin but the trees seemed to draw closer. The friends drew closer to each other as well. The others were quietly relieved when Henry asked they take a snack break. Adam could walk seemingly forever and neither Gansey nor Blue was willing to ask him to wait. (Adam was feeling tired too, but he rarely considered that it might be relevant even in normal situations.)

“Are we sure we’re going the right way?” Henry asked. “I mean, I know you all have been there and I haven’t, but it might not be in the same place.”

It took uncomfortably long for anyone to respond. 

“We’re going where it was last time,” Gansey said at last. No one had a better answer.

In silent agreement, they walked on.


End file.
